It didn't bear thinking about!
She should have gone to sleep hours ago. She couldn't. She'd tried about midnight. She'd put on a pair of sleep shorts and a T-shirt, and she'd gone to bed. But she couldn't sleep. She'd tossed and turned and thought of Nikos.
Nikos the traitor.
Nikos. In bed with another woman.
There had been no use staying in bed trying to sleep when thoughts like that played havoc with her mind. She got back up. She went outside. She went up to the big house and checked on Julietta and on Alex. All was well.
She went back outside.
The night was still and almost moonless. There was no light but that since she'd shut off the pool light hours ago. There was no wind either—except the searing awful wind of pain that blew through her when she thought about Nikos with someone else. She needed to do something—to work off the feelings that buffeted her.
A sail would have been wonderful. But it was the middle of the night and she had no boat.
A swim, then. The ocean always helped. If she couldn't be on it, she could be in it. But she knew better than to do that, too. She wouldn't swim alone in the ocean. Not when no one knew where she had gone.
But she could swim in the pool.
And so she did. She shed her shorts and shirt and dove straight in. Who was there to see, after all?
Nikos?
Hardly. And if he were there, he would turn his back!
She swam long and hard. Lap after lap. Back and forth. On and on. As if swimming would purge her need, cleanse her soul, calm her emotions.
It tired her out. Her heart beat from the exertion. Her pulses raced from the effort expended. But the need was still there when she finally glided to the deep end, crossed her arms on the tiles and rested her chin on them.
The need was still there. Not even dulled. Sharper, if anything, because it was the strongest feeling in her. Passion.
Once she'd marvelled at it, had been amazed to feel it. Now it was her constant companion. Since she'd met Nikos, it wouldn't leave her alone. He would, though. He had. He was with someone else.
Slowly Man hauled herself out of the water. She stood naked on the tiles, dripping, letting the night air dry her. She wrung the water out of her hair and combed it back with her fingers.
And then headlights came around the curve of the long drive and caught her full force. She stopped, frozen. The car stopped, too. Jerked to a halt with an instant's screech of the brakes.
Then Mari reached for her clothes, snatched them up and tried to pull them on, hopping toward the house as she did so. Damn! Oh, damn!
And then Nikos was out of the car, limping towards her as fast as he could.
She almost made it into the house. She had her shorts on, had the T-shirt almost over her head. And he caught up with her, turned her in his arms, and lowered his mouth to hers.
She should have fought him. He hadn't wanted her! He'd turned his back on her, gone to someone else!
She tried to fight him. But he held her fast, wrapped his arms around her, pressed her wet body to his.
"God, Mari! What you do to me!" He gasped the words against her mouth. He ground his body against hers, showing her all too clearly that, whoever he'd been with, his desire for her had not slackened.
She pushed at him. "Go away! You don't want me! You wanted—"
"I want you! How could you think I don't! You're killing me."
"You left!"
"Because I shouldn't want you!"
Their bodies were tangling as they spoke. He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes. He threaded his fingers through her hair, tugging lightly, tipping her head back to give him greater access. He kissed her neck, her jaw, her ears.
"You went to someone else!"
"I didn't."
"Don't lie."
"I'm not lying. I wanted to. I needed to! I couldn't." He sounded disgusted with himself.
Mari pushed him back and tried to see his expression. It was too dark. She could only hear his labored breathing, feel the hardness of his body, the grip of his fingers on her arms. "Is that true?" she asked quietly.
She heard him swallow. She felt the shudder that ran through him when he exhaled sharply. "It's true."
"You were going to." It wasn't a question.
"Yes. Of course I was. You want forever. I'm not offering forever. So how could I use you?''
"Use?"
"That's what it would be," he said harshly.
"No." She didn't believe that. No matter what he thought he was doing, she was sure he wasn't capable of using her. And she wouldn't be using him. Once she might have—not to make love with, but to learn about her capacity for passion. But this had only peripherally to do with passion. It had only to do with him.
"What do you mean, no?" Nikos rasped.
"I love you," she told him.
He stopped dead. Didn't speak. Didn't move. Didn't even seem to breathe. Then, "No, you don't," he said.
She touched his lips. "I do." She remembered Alex saying those same words and her thinking it sounded like a wedding promise. It sounded like a vow when she said it now, too.
Nikos must have thought so, too, for he pulled abruptly away. He turned his back. He bent his head and hunched his shoulders as if weighed down by some great burden. Then he tipped his head back and threw back his shoulders and stared at the sky as if the answers were there.
The answers, Mari could have told him, weren't anywhere out there. They were inside him.
"I'm not promising forever," he said finally, turning his head toward her. His voice was rough—with need and tension and, perhaps, something else. There was no harshness, though. It was as if he was warning her.
Mari understood.
She reached out a hand and touched his arm. A tremor went through him. She ran her hand down his arm to touch his fingers. She wrapped her own around them. For a long moment he didn't move, as if he was giving her one last chance to back out.
But Mari wasn't backing out
She was going to love Nikos Costanides—and she was going in head—and heart—first.
He'd thought she was a mirage. An illusion.
He'd thought that one whiskey he'd downed had gone straight to his brain, making him see things that weren't there.
That wasn't really Mari Lewis naked on the poolside,
was it?
He'd slammed on the brakes, staring in disbelief until he saw her move. She'd reached for her clothes, grabbed them, and started toward the house.
And he knew he wasn't going to let her get that far.
He hadn't. He'd caught her. He'd kissed her. He'd allowed her to feel the feverish need he had for her.
He had wanted her desperately. He still wanted her.
He didn't want her to love him.
Why in God's name had she said that she loved him?
"Don't," he'd begged her. "How could I use you?" he'd asked her. I'm not promising forever, he'd warned.
But it hadn't done any good.
She'd taken his hand. She'd touched his face. She'd put her arms around him and let him feel the beat of her heart. He couldn't say no any longer. A man could only take just so much.
He took Mari to the cottage, to his room. To his bed.
She went willingly, eagerly even. She sat on the bed and watched while he fumbled to get out of his clothes. His hands were shaking, and finally, with a small smile, she'd said, "Let me. I'm good at this."
For a second he scowled, thinking she meant she'd undressed a lot of men. But then he realized she was talking about undoing buttons and zippers. She was a nanny. It was her stock-in-trade.
She was the sexiest nanny he'd ever seen. The sexiest woman. It was all he could do to stand still and let her undo the buttons of his shirt and slide it off, ease down the zipper of his trousers and skim them down his legs. She dropped to her knees to do it. Her wet hair brushed against him. Through his shorts he could feel her. His teeth came together. His shut his eyes.
His fingers curled into fists.
He stepped out of the shorts, reached for her, pulled her up against him, and fell back, carrying her with him onto the bed.
God, it felt good, having her body covering his like this. He'd dreamed about Mari Lewis in his bed since the first day he'd seen her. He'd tried not to think of her except as fully-clothed and poring over computer screens full of tankage volumes or playing with Alex on the floor. And during the daylight hours he hadn't done too badly.
The nights his unconscious had taken over, weaving fantasies that drove him wild. One of them had them lying together, Mari on top of him, her weight warm and wonderful, a prelude to her body taking him in.
This Mari was cool, her skin still fresh from her swim in the night air. But the longer she lay atop him, the warmer they became. The heat grew between them—the heat of desire, of need.
Of love, he knew Mari would say.
He couldn't say it. He could feel it, though. He slid his hands down her back, caught his thumbs beneath the elastic of her shorts and tugged them off. Her skin was so smooth, so slick, so soft. So cool. So warm. So hot.
He couldn't get enough of her.
And Mart's touch, as eager and frantic as his, said she felt the same way about him.
Of course she did. She loved him.
He didn't let himself think about that. It was a burden he couldn't carry. It was a promise he couldn't make.
"It's all right," she whispered, as if she knew. And he supposed she might because he had stopped just then.
His hands had ceased their stroking. His body had tensed, holding back.
"It's all right."
It wasn't. But he couldn't help it. He needed her now. He'd warned her. She knew what she was getting. All he could give. Not what she wanted, but what he was capable of.
"Come to me, Nikos." She beckoned. She rolled off him and drew him down upon her. Her hands played down the length of his spine, making him arch against her as they reached his buttocks. They stripped off his own shorts.
He made a sound deep in his throat. A hungry sound. A needy sound. He needed her, and it was with great anticipation that he settled between her legs, both of them naked at last.
He wanted to make it good for her. If he couldn't give her forever, he could at least give her the joy of the moment. And so he set about doing just that. But it wasn't only joy for her. He, too, was caught up in what was happening between them.
And when she drew him into her, even though he felt her body's resistance, he could not stop.
"It's all right," she said again because, he understood, she did not want him to stop. She wanted him— all of him. She gave him all of herself.
What was this intimacy they were sharing? How was it different than any other coupling he had ever shared?
Because it was. He knew that from the moment he was inside her.
It was touch. There was always touch. It was friction. But there was always that, too. It was fire, burning hot and strong and vital. But it was also something more.
Intimacy with Mari gave him something he'd never come close to experiencing with any other woman. He couldn't describe it. Had no words.
Passion? Yes, but...
Desire? Of course, and...Love?
That, he was sure, was what Mari was calling it. Maybe...maybe it was. He didn't know. Didn't care. It overcame him before he could define it. It drew him in, encircled him, tied him down...
And freed him at the same time.
And when he felt her body shiver around his, when he felt her pulse with release and heard her gasp, "Oh!" as if she'd never experienced anything like this, he knew exactly how she felt.
He felt the same way.
Lost. And suddenly—in her embrace—found.
The phone woke them.
Nikos rolled away from Mari long enough to squint at the bedside clock before answering it. Almost four. He supposed he should be glad that Brian had given them a little more time.
"Whowizit?" Mari mumbled. She rolled with him, keeping him in her embrace. "Brian? C'rruthers?"
"Who else?" Nikos muttered. He didn't want to wake up. Didn't want the real world intruding on what he and Mari had shared. They'd had too little time as it was. He wanted more. Not much. A few hours. He wanted to love her just one more time.
"Can't you give me one night's peace?" he barked into the phone.
There was a long pause.
Then Julietta's wavering voice said, "Nikos? Is Mari with you? I...looked for her. I don't want to bother you. I'm sorry, but I think this is it. This time I really am in labor."
CHAPTER TEN
There was no time to be embarrassed.
Mari had to throw on one of Nikos's long-tailed shirts and hurry to the house. There, in the bedroom she'd been using since Julietta had gone to the hospital the first time, she hurriedly dressed and then, despairing of getting a comb through her damp, hopelessly tangled hair, she loped down the hall to find Julietta huddled in her bed.
"They're four minutes apart and they're strong." Julietta's eyes were wide with dark smudges beneath. There was a waver in her voice, too, but it was stronger than it had been at the hospital before. And she didn't look panicky, just nervous. "The doctor said the more time, the better. I hope this is enough."
"It's enough," Mari said, and prayed that she was right.
Moments later Nikos came in. He wore clean jeans and an open-necked blue shirt, which wasn't entirely tucked in. Still, he looked far more put together than Mari knew she did. Having one's hair combed was indeed a help.
"Ready?" he asked Julietta.
She nodded toward the small suitcase by the dresser. "All packed. I just...need to go in and see Alex."
"You're going to wake him?" Nikos frowned.
Julietta shook her head. "Just see him." Holding her abdomen, she trundled into Alex's room and bent over him for just a moment. Her hand touched his hair and he stirred slightly, but didn't wake. Then awkwardly she leaned down and dropped a kiss on his cheek. She looked at Mari, standing in the door to the hallway. ' 'All set now."
Mari stepped out of the way. Nikos, who had put her case in the car, was just coming back in. He looked at Mari, his face whisker-shadowed and haggard, a hint of desperation in his eyes. Mari thought she knew what the desperation was about. He'd just realized that one of them was going to have to go to the hospital with Julietta. One of them might even have to coach her through her labor and delivery. One of them was going to have to tell Stavros. And one of them was going to get to stay home with Alex.
She knew what he expected her to say. She was, after all, the logical one to stay home. She was the nanny.
But she was his nanny. And in this case there was no deliberation at all. She had to do what was best for her charge. And in this case it was letting him stay with Alex. It was, if the truth were known, best for Alex, too.
They were brothers. They needed each other.
Later, when Alex was awake, when he could be a buffer between Nikos and the pain, that would be soon enough for them to come to the hospital.
She held out a hand to him. His was cold and clammy. She gave it a squeeze. "You stay," she said. "I'll go."
Something flickered in his eyes. Something relaxed in his body. His fingers returned the squeeze and he nodded. "We'll come later."
Julietta looked at the two of them and smiled right before another contraction hit. Then she said, "We'd better be going."
"A girl?" Alex looked doubtful when Nikos gave him the news several hours later. Julietta's labor had been quick. The baby was small, but apparently strong.
"Mother and daughter are doing well," Mari had called and told him a while ago. "You have a sister."
A sister. A dainty dark-haired child who would grow up to knock men's socks off, Nikos had no doubt. He supposed that meant he would have to be vigilant, protecting her from rakes and scoundrels. From men like him.
Men who took and didn't give.
But, some v
oice inside him argued, he hadn't taken from Mari last night. She had given—and he had received. It was the most beautiful gift he'd ever had. That was certain. He would cherish it the rest of his life.
He would cherish her.
But he wouldn't marry her. He didn't dare.
"Girls aren't bad," he said now, his voice a little rough. And at Alex's still dubious look, he ruffled the boy's hair. "You'll see."
Alex hopped around the kitchen, having finished the bowl of cereal Nikos had given him. "When? Can we go soon?"
"Soon," Nikos promised. "Just let me clean up here."
In fact it took a little longer than he thought. He had two phone calls, one from Claudia about regular business matters and another more desperate one from Brian a little later. He took some notes and promised to get right on it.
"Do that," Brian said. "And when the hell are you coming back? You're out of the cast now, aren't you?"
"Yeah. It's just...I've been needed here."
"Well, you're needed here, too, old man. I thought you weren't going to let your father run you."
"He's not. It has nothing to do with him." "Whatever you say," Brian said. But Nikos didn't need much imagination to hear the skepticism in his voice.
He hung up rather more forcefully than necessary, then turned to Alex. "Come on. Let's go to the hospital."
She was a dainty dark-haired child. Just over five pounds, with a red mottled face and the longest eyelashes he'd ever seen.
"She looks sort of like a monkey," Alex whispered to him nervously, out of Julietta's hearing.
She did, in fact. But, "She'll grow out of it," Nikos assured him.
"Did I look like a monkey?" Alex asked.
"I didn't see you when you were a baby," Nikos admitted.
"How come?"
"I was...out of the country." And wouldn't have been willing to come and see this new half-brother even if he hadn't been. Though of course he didn't tell Alex that.
He'd considered Alex's birth more of his father's folly. It wasn't enough that he marry a trophy wife young enough to be his daughter! Then the old man had to go and get her with child. Nikos had been furious when he'd found out.
The Playboy and the Nanny Page 13